The second incident happened on Friday on Okaloosa Island. A beach chair/umbrella attendant was struck by lightning and killed. To make this worse he was the son of a lady who works for me. A severe thunderstorm blew through Fort Walton Beach Friday about 3 pm. This was a major storm with tons of lightning and driving rain. Unfortunately we have a young guy just trying to make some money over the summer who was caught in the storm. Many people are killed each year in Florida by lightning strikes especially on the beaches. Needless to say if a storm approaches get to some place safe to ride it out. RIP Zack…
This also seemed to be a week where we ran into more drunks around town than usual. The first one was about 6 am Tuesday morning. I was driving to work and near AJ’s a drunk was staggering across Hwy 98. Several of us had to dodge him as he was not making it across in a straight line. What makes it worse was he was at one of the new pedestrian lights but he didn’t activate it. He was lucky he was not killed…at 6 am!!!
On Thursday morning as I went to work part of 98 was closed by Hogs Breath as a truck hit a power pole about 4:30 am. Power lines were down in the street and traffic was diverted to Mountain Drive. I don’t know for sure but my guess would be a drunk driver. Thursday evening as I was going home I was on Mountain drive and a guy on a bicycle was hit by a car. From what I could see it looked like one of our homeless drunks. Some of them have bikes making them even more of a problem.
Friday night Sunshine Cindy and I went to The Boathouse for their grand opening of the Upper Deck bar next door to the Boathouse. We checked out the new bar which is real nice then we went to listen to Kelly and later Jason play. Mark and Stephanie joined us and then Kenny showed up too. At one point in the evening an ambulance pulled down there. There was a drunk guy that was in distress but he refused treatment. Some of his friends hauled him out. It was a fun night at The Boathouse. Kenny got up to play a few songs with Jason. Our neighbor Hayden was there. A bachelorette party came through…a good time was had by all.
Keeping the drunk theme going…Sunday afternoon Sunshine Cindy and I stopped in to the Red Door for some lunch. A drunk guy with a couple girls was getting loud in the back corner. We were ignoring him but I was keeping an eye on him. For no reason he threw a drink at one of his friends but it mostly hit us and some folks next to us. Luckily the girls got him out of the bar before we kicked his ass. On his way out he must have been bumping into people as folks were hollering to get the drunk out of here. Then in the parking lot he face planted himself. He was down for a while but they finally got him back up and out of there. I guess Karma caught up with him.
Other than that we had a good time. The folks next to us were two Cajun couples. We ended up talking to them. Danny and his wife actually live in Santa Rosa Beach so we hope to meet up again in the future. Ken and his lady came in and we talked to them. Tony stopped in. He has been busy all summer as the captain of the Cattywomphus catamaran. Finally John came in and we chatted with him too. It was a fun time as we had a strong breeze keeping us cool.
Saturday was a laid back day for us. We went to see Sunshine Cindy’s parents as it was her mom’s birthday. We can tell the summer tourist season is coming to an end. Usually Saturday traffic north and southbound is a nightmare as it is the changeover day. It was not terrible this Saturday. There was a backup at the toll booth but it was gone by 6 pm and we flew through.
We have some restaurant openings and closings to mention. The Harbor House in Destin appears to be closed. There was a lot of money sunk into this place to try and turn it into a big club but only being open a few days a week it is tough to make enough to pay the bills. I also see the place in downtown Fort Walton Beach that was called Buffalo Chip’s then just Chips has closed after a short time being open. We never made it into either the Harbor House or Chips before they closed. Sometimes places are gone almost as fast as they come.
On the island, The Gulf Okaloosa construction is progressing. This place is on the bay back by the strip club area. They are using shipping containers for the building. They will a big place with about 5200 square feet of enclosed space, 3600 square feet of covered space and about 4800 square feet of uncovered decks. A ton of palm trees are going in now so they must be getting close to opening.
I also see a Dunkin Donuts will be opening in Destin in a new center almost across from Big Kahuna’s.
It looks like we are in store for a wet week. A small system is in the Gulf that will be bringing the rain. I hope it does not wash away some of our plans for the parade on Tuesday on the harbor and our beach cleanup on Saturday but we will see.
Have a great week. See ya next Monday!
Destin Steve
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